Cheap political tricks continue on the Pacific Hwy

Jessica Grewal
Senior Reporter APN Newsdesk NSW Bureau
Working from Sydney, Jessica specialises in crime/court reporting, filing for APN’s regional mastheads in Northern NSW as well as providing national content for the group.
She was previously Chief Reporter at the Fraser Coast Chronicle in Hervey Bay, Queensland where she grew up and trained.
Early in her career, she was named Queensland Young Journalist of the Year at the Clarion Awards.
More recently, she was finalist at the 2013 Kennedy Awards for Excellence in NSW Journalism in both the...

THE NSW Government has been caught out "playing political games" with hundreds of millions in federal funding for the Pacific Hwy upgrade, Deputy Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has claimed.

Just days after the NSW Government accused Federal Labor of "turning off the funding tap", Mr Albanese told APN Newsdesk that following this year's Federal Budget, NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay wrote to him and complained that "the Pacific Hwy has received an allocation of nearly $740 million more than requested" and the extra money would not be spent until late next year.

Mr Albanese said the latest revelation "shatters what remaining credibility" the NSW Coalition Government had on the Pacific Hwy and confirmed they were "more interested in playing political games than fixing this vital road once and for all".

Pacific Hwy funding has continued to be a bone of contention in the Federal Election campaign.

Mr Gay said on Thursday that by "misrepresenting one sentence" contained in the letter, Mr Albanese had made a "serious error in judgement".

He said if the $740 million referred to in the letter was "new money", Mr Albanese would have announced it in "flashing lights".

"My letter acknowledges Labor has shifted funding between financial years, which is an old trick...to bring them into surplus," Mr Gay said

"By paying money early - it delivers a deeper deficit now so that they can make it look like a surplus in 2019."